


Regarding Personal Flaws and Weaknesses

by pudgy puk (deumion)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Other, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9138439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deumion/pseuds/pudgy%20puk
Summary: The best chirurgeons in Ishgard couldn't remove one particularly stubborn thorn from Estinien's side.





	

“You’re back.”

Estinien didn’t turn to greet Aymeric, instead stayed sat at Gibrillont’s bar—just where Aymeric had been reliably informed he’d be, with a steaming mug of something mulled in front of him, and another in front of the stool adjacent to him. “Not for very long.”

Aymeric nodded his understanding, declining to remove his coat before sitting down. He took a sip from the mug (mulled dessert wine, unusually sweet; how he preferred it) and, deciding that Estinien was clearly not going to do his part to keep this conversation going, gently asked “Did you find a way back there?”

“There” was slightly hesitant, when Aymeric spoke the word. “There” was a place of nightmare, to hear Alphinaud tell it—the peak of Allagan hubris and heresy, stuffed with aberration and abomination on such a scale it beggared belief, a scale that could make even the most devoted doubt the existence of the gods’ justice. To go there once demanded bravery—but to willingly _return_ …

“Aye,” Estinien said, slowly and followed by a deep drink from his mug. …A very deep drink. Aymeric was just opening his mouth to try to prompt something more from him before he spoke again. “I had to.” Another beat of silence. “For her. It was…”

Estinien fell into what seemed (to Aymeric, who had a long if not illustrious career as azure-dragoon-whisperer) a somewhat involuntary silence, struggling for words. Cautiously, Aymeric offered, “The right thing to do?”

“The only thing to do,” Estinien returned, instantly and insistently.

“I see,” Aymeric said with a nod, and they both then returned to silent consideration of their drinks and their situation. This…was now, definitely, about Ysayle. And that meant Aymeric was out of his depth. In all the tumult and upheaval, while he had known about Ysayle, had made plans and given orders concerning her for over a year now—he’d never met her, never even seen her. What he knew of her was intelligence, couched in the language of war and espionage—location, behavior pattern, assets, speculation on motive, former identity, connections—that had itself been turned upside down and scattered by the revelations of the past moons. He was capable of having a conversation about Lady Iceheart—Ysayle was a different story.

But perhaps, that disadvantage could be turned around. Wrapping both hands around his still-mostly-full mug, Aymeric bit his lip momentarily and then said, “You know—I never knew her. What was she like?”

Estinien snorted in response, and took a sip of his wine, and—once again, just as Aymeric was about to try another tack—spoke up. “She was deluded. She thought she could end a war, she thought she could defeat primals, she thought she could destroy warships. With—borrowed power, borrowed _heretical_ power.” He shook his head, but was talking again immediately, while Aymeric was still nodding gravely.

“She killed people—too many people, while apologizing for dragons—like a child. Like a silly little girl, playing with moogles and monsters. You never saw her, right?” Aymeric hadn’t been expecting that, and he blinked in surprise before starting to form his mouth around a careful response that Estinien wasn’t waiting for anyways. “Tall and too thin. Rather gawky, unnaturally pale. Wide forehead, pigeon-toed, and nothing impressive about her figure.” He sniffed disdainfully, and took a quick sip, and barreled on.

“She wore her hair loose like she thought herself above the demands of a war she fought in—she _coddled_ Alphinaud, she acted like he was young enough to still need a mother, even though she was deluded to think she could have been that either. I couldn’t imagine living for a year on her cooking, let alone a lifetime.” Estinien’s cheeks were reddening as he spoke, and, Aymeric noticed, his mug was rapidly approaching empty. “I don’t even know what she was doing in this war, she clearly didn’t belong there.”

It was about then that Aymeric began to feel the prickling sensation of eyes on him, on them, as Estinien’s voice increased in volume. “You know—she thought she was so much better than me. Stronger, smarter—even though she was too damn stubborn. No idea when to quit, when it came to dragons.” And just as Aymeric was ruefully reflecting on his decision to try and have this conversation in the first place: “She looked down her snub nose like it was second nature. Talking to her was _impossible_.

“And that’s her. That’s Ysayle,” Estinien continued bitterly. “She was dangerous, clever, stubborn to the point of being damn insufferable, acted superior and self-assured, tried to take care of the most ridiculous things, from dragons to scholars to damn furballs, she thought everything could be solved her way and thought she could save the damn world and not once—not _once_ , in her entire damn life, did she ever listen to me.”

With that, he drained his mug, and almost slammed it down on the bar. In the utter silence that followed, he gestured to Gibrillont, who, after a moment to get over his own surprise, refilled it. Then, Estinien took a small sip, stared into the dark surface of the wine, and sighed deeply. “So of course I loved her madly.”

Left speechless, all Aymeric could think to do was pat Estinien’s shoulders. So he did, as those shoulders hunched, as his head lowered to the bar, as all the eyes that had been fixed on them respectfully turned away, pretending they weren’t there as Estinien’s shoulders began shaking and his breath hitching.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it has been a year to the day since I started writing and posting FFXIV fanfic. Thank you all for reading this stuff, it really has been one of the high points of this hell year of 2016. I hope to keep writing for all of you in 2017!


End file.
